CORRUPTED THEORIES

Overview

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is proud to present the first solo show of artist Abdelkader Benchamma in the Middle East. In this exhibition, a series of sculptures and works on paper showcase Benchamma's quintessential approach, in which he imposes restrictions and constraints to create delicately executed drawings of states of matter, events and explosions. The physical properties of forms succumb to processes of materialisation, or adversely dematerialisation, and alternate between sculptural and liquid states, between figurative and abstract matter. Submitting varying elements to tensions, levitations, contrary movements and mute dialogues about space and time, Benchamma translates into his work the obscure harmony born from the chaotic environment that envelops us.

The strong influences of science fiction literature and cosmology, as well as existentialist theatre and literary investigations, emerge lucidly in Benchamma's art. Along with the concepts and theories, aspects of the visual expressions of these ideas filter into his drawing processes - his technique is a fusion of graphic techniques from printing, engraving, landscape and scientific drawing. The purity and intensity of the lines in his scenes express powerful and ambiguous atmospheres, provoking the questioning of a stable reality: Benchamma notes that 'the more the line is precise, the more the nature of the mass remains elusive'.